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2 Answers
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That is called 形声. About 90% of all kanjis are created in this way. In this case, the left side 言 is responsible for the meaning, and the right side, 吾 is responsible for the pronunciation. In turn, 吾 is composed of the upper part 五, which is responsible for the pronunciation and the lower part 口, which is responsible for the meaning. Why is 五 included in 語? Because it was created so. Why is this way of creating kanji so popular? Because it will be a mess if thousands of kanjis were all pictograms, and if the pronunciation and the meaning are combined, it will be easy to both remember its meaning and the pronunciation.

As long as you are talking about Japanese, all three characters are pronounced completely the same as "go", (and in ancient Chinese when the characters were created, they were the same as well according to you).
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user458Feb 16 '12 at 13:33

@sawa: Even in Old Chinese they weren't the same -- like a rebus, the phonetic doesn't fully determine the pronunciation -- just more similar than in the modern language.
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jogloranFeb 17 '12 at 0:49

2

I see. I didn't realize that part. I misinterpreted your description. I see, they are different.
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user458Feb 17 '12 at 4:19

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Just wondering if it's common to use ? for glottal stop when there is already a symbol for it... Using ʔ (and hopefully noting what it means) would at least not make people think you are writing something question-related.
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atlantizaFeb 17 '12 at 7:44